(From DCist contributor William Beutler)

Diminutive though he was, Sonny Bono's shadow stretches longer than most from the Republican class of 1994, thanks in part to his controversial Copyright Term Extension Act and the political career of his widow, Mary Bono, who has now held the Palm Springs-based seat for longer than he did.

Bono is also remembered in this town at the confluence of 20th and O streets NW along New Hampshire Avenue, the site of Sonny Bono Memorial Park. One could walk past it regularly for years (as we did) without realizing that this triangular green space is something more than a well-tended traffic island a block south of Dupont Circle.

The park covers about 800 square feet, overlaid with Kentucky bluegrass, dotted with stone benches and accented by a seven-foot Japanese maple. The area is encircled (entriangled?) with juniper bushes and delimited by a low, wrought iron fence. At the entrance is a plaque one practically has to step on to get inside, reading: "IN MEMORY OF MY FRIEND SONNY BONO 1935-1998; ENTERTAINER; ENTREPRENEUR; STATESMAN; FRIEND."

That friendship refers to Geary Simon, a local real estate developer of 30 years (a few of which, long ago, were spent in prison on larceny and fraud convictions). The two met when Simon's girlfriend was giving tae kwon do lessons to Mrs. Bono at the Jhoon Rhee Institute in Georgetown (now the site of the Ritz-Carlton). The two became best friends, and when Bono died after a skiing accident in the early days of 1998, Simon emerged briefly as a family spokesman. In a telephone conversation, Simon told DCist the story behind the park.

"I buried Sonny in January," Simon recalled, and upon returning to D.C. he already had the idea of building a local memorial to his friend. By April he'd begun construction of the park with $25,000 of his own money and the imprimatur of the city parks system. Simon took what had been a barren, weed-strewn lot, put in an underground sprinkler system plus lighting and hired someone to maintain the grounds. By late summer, he was done. As Simon said at the time in the W.Times, "Even for somebody who didn't like Sonny, they got a nice park."

Even less well known than the park itself is the vault buried three to four feet below street level, directly underneath the plaque. It contains sheet music for "The Beat Goes On," a coffee mug from Sonny's Italian restaurant, his official congressional cufflinks and memorabilia from his various political campaigns. Simon refused any financial assistance, but asked Sonny's friends for contributions to the vault. Among other personal mementos he received two sealed envelopes, which he gladly entombed with the rest, no questions asked.

Not much has changed since; Simon still visits often, as do nearby day care centers and nine-to-fivers on lunch breaks. On the one-year anniversary of Sonny's passing, friends and fans decorated the park with flower arrangements, candles and teddy bears. One sign said: "Jan. 5, 1999: One year gone, but never forgotten. WE LOVE YOU SONNY!"

A few months later there was a minor row when the park's imported Dutch tulips kept getting picked. After Simon publicized the vandalism, a neighborhood woman came forward, mortified, to admit she had taken them without knowing of the location's significance. Simon responded by buying her a bouquet of tulips.

To visit the Sonny Bono memorial, take the Red line to the Dupont Circle station and exit via the south escalators to 19th Street. From the circle, walk one block southwest along New Hampshire Ave to the next intersection, where the triangle park sits.